


A Helping Hand

by FeeFido



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: M/M, Other, Phobias, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeeFido/pseuds/FeeFido
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fear is weakness and a liability. But when time isn't enough to heal old wounds, Shockwave steps up to try and help Starscream overcome what fear still plagues him (with mixed results).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Helping Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stellarity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarity/gifts).



> A gift for a friend on tumblr who wouldn't stop talking about Shockwave and his apparent husband material lol ♥
> 
> Brief context for the people who don't know: in the comic-tie-in prequels to the movie, Starscream is shown being attacked by a driller while protecting some hatchlings, and is helped out by Megatron and Shockwave, who just so happened to be passing by at the right moment. It's in no way implied that Starscream is left with any lasting fear after this, but hey, I like to speculate.

Starscream studies the appendages with apprehension thick in his field. The three tendrils branching out of the ground are small, much smaller than any driller he’s ever seen or heard of, with their diameter being no thicker than his arm and no longer than he is tall, but he knows better than to assume that means the beast itself is small. He knows, just below the surface, beneath his very pedes, the full beast and all its massive deadly parts sits in wait; and, as past experiences have shown him, all it takes is one second for that stillness to be disrupted, to explode forward into ground shattering tremors and sudden motion, and you’ll be looking down a twisted maw at your own untimely end before your optics can even shutter.

Those vivid memories still fresh in his processor, he takes a tentative step away, closer to the one thing he knows is standing between himself and death; the creature’s handler.

Shockwave notices of course, but he doesn’t move away; rather, he steps closer as well.

“Your fear is illogical.” The scientist drones with a slow motion of his servo, gesturing towards the three tendrils still waving passively out of the ground in front of them. Their pronged tips, opened and exposing the glowing red lenses hidden inside, track the movement of his claws, but make no move towards his hand. Merely watching, and waiting. “The driller is tamed and will not act unless I command it.”

“Nothing is ever fully tamed,” Starscream mutters, and his frame tenses uneasily as one of the tentacles turns its frightening little optic on him instead, “it could very well turn on you at any moment.”

“Perhaps.” Shockwave muses, and not sounding the least bit phased by his own admission, as he silently extends his servo. Palm open and facing up, he holds it there like an offering that turns to more of a command as the same appendage that had been locked on the Seeker weaves its way forward. Starscream moves a little further behind the tall gun-wielder, but Shockwave remains still and impassive as the driller slides easily into his waiting servo. It doesn’t lash out, doesn’t continue on coiling around his arm, just rests there like another servo in hand; even as Shockwave’s claws curl around it and hold it firmly in his grasp, it doesn’t react, only waits.

“If such were the case though,” Shockwave continues, “I would terminate it, just as I have before.”

His single red optic, so much like the one nestled in his hand, turns on him in an almost pointed look. But Starscream doesn’t have to be reminded, he remembers the encounter and his subsequent rescue well enough, is even forced into those memories some cycles during particularly bad recharge fluxes; some of those dreams even ending without his rescue ever coming, only with darkness, and the ominous grinding of rock and metal. Thankfully though, the scientist spares him the shame, and doesn’t say it out loud.

Instead, he opens his servo and raises it slightly in offering. Starscream only stares.

He raises it again, higher.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you to touch it.”

Starscream balks. If it weren’t for his apparent protection, he may have even jumped away from his side at such a suggestion.

“Are you insane?!”

Shockwave merely shutters his optic in response.

“Of course you are, what am I saying,” Starscream scoffs with a flicker of his mandibles, “I’m perfectly fine here. Why should I give it the chance to grab me?”

“It won’t grab you,” Shockwave intones, “I’ll make sure of it.”

The assurance in his voice is… odd. Starscream isn’t sure if he should be comforted or unsettled by it, but ultimately falls for the later; his wings twitching and pedes stepping unsteadily in place as he contemplates his survival if he were to just turn pede and flee. This had to be some trick. He just knows it. Why else would Shockwave be so adamant, other than to cause him harm?

As if sensing his dilemma, he speaks again.

“As I have said, Commander, your fear is illogical. But logical or not it has persisted well past your traumatic event. Fears can be overridden though, and it has been supported by many studies that, in order to conquer one’s fear, one must face it.” He raises the tendril up to him once more, emphasizing and finalizing. “Hence; you must touch it.”

The Seeker shifts, apprehension, anxiety, and fear, all bleeding into one as the tentacle is brought closer to his body, and once more he contemplates taking off and getting away, far away from the ground, breaking through the atmosphere and never touching down again. But even as his sparkpulse raises and his plates constrict tighter around his frame, unconsciously bracing himself for the strike he’s been told countless times won’t come, he doesn’t draw away. He’s not sure if it was the scientist’s intention, but he can’t help but feel as if his courage had been challenged, his ability to perform questioned; and, although that’s never been a concern of his before what others thought of his courage, with the delicate way Shockwave has approached all this, his feels like very self is being patronized. Like he’s being treated like some fragile thing to be coddled and looked after.

He’s better than that. Stronger than that.

“Alright alright…”

And yet…

Starscream hesitates to do it, every part of his processor yelling at him not to do the stupid thing he’s about to do, but he raises one clawed hand regardless. He moves it cautiously forward, reaching around the stoic scientist as his spark sputters in his chest, only to quickly draw back when that red optic flicks towards his hand.

“I have hold of it. It won’t harm you, Commander.” Shockwave curls his fingers in subtle reminder around the dark appendage, even tugging it down some to show how easy he is able to manipulate it. Starscream nods, mostly to himself, and tries again.

This time, ignoring the noticeable shaking as he slowly extends one trembling claw towards his greatest fear, Starscream manages to place the very tip of one razor edge on top of its plating. He even manages to hold it for a whole three seconds, allowing its twisting, curling armor to drag along his claw, before quickly taking it away. He just barely resists the urge to clutch it to his chest to protect it from the optic still locked intently on him.

“Very good.” Shockwave praises regardless in that same monotonous voice, and for some strange reason, Starscream actually feels warmed by it. Maybe even a little proud, even though he knows it to be an insignificant achievement. It’s certainly more than he’d ever thought himself capable of doing. He thinks, maybe, trusting Shockwave with this beast has some merit to it after all. Even if the insane scientist certainly can’t be trusted with anything else.

The conundrum is enough of a distraction that the Seeker doesn’t notice the other mech has released the appendage, until the servo that had once been holding it at bay is now holding his instead.

It’s a testament to how utterly bizarre it all is that Starscream doesn’t immediately jerk his hand free from the other’s surprisingly gentle grasp, he’s just that taken aback by surprise. Instead, numbed by shock, he silently allows his hand to be manipulated by the scientist’s own hard-edged claws, until he’s been placed in a similar fashion that Shockwave had his own before; held out and palm opened up.

He moves around him, and Starscream tenses as he steps out of sight behind his body. He wings twitch, fine tuned sensors easily picking up the heat of another body hovering so close, close enough that he can feel the slight shift of air as he vents silently behind him, blowing warmth across his planes and making his sensor net tingle with the energy in his overwhelmingly palpable field; all without actually touching him, beyond the hand still firmly holding his.

“Now,” Shockwave starts, his voice low and somehow sounding _calm_ to his audiles, as his hand slowly traces down to grip his wrist instead, “you’re going to hold it.”

Starscream sputters.

“B-but I-that’s not-you didn’t say—”

His hand shakes. In front of him the tendrils watch and study him, all three staring at his opened servo, all three steadily creeping closer. He moves to take a step back, but he halts, frozen and rigid, all too aware of Shockwave’s firm presence still taking up space directly behind him. Still not touching, not yet, but all it would take is that one step. With nowhere to go, his talons flex and dig gouges into the ground, as if bracing to launch himself up instead.

The Seeker doesn’t know which is more frightening now, the driller’s appendages slowly approaching him, or its owner, forcing him to stay in place.

The larger servo around his wrist nudges his hand forward, closer, offering his unwilling palm, and one slinks closer.

He flinches, turning his helm away and shuttering his optics against the terror as it squeezes at his very core. And he whimpers, trembling hard enough that his frame rattles as he feels the thing slowly slither into his hand, warm and heavy, its sharp edges and twisting components dragging over his palm like so many welded together blades. It stills at his wrist where Shockwave’s hand still resides with a constant pressure, but he can still feel it, twitching and moving around, the very tip brushing over the exposed wiring in his wrist. It almost tickles.

He feels just as much as he hears Shockwave speak over his head once more, “ _very good_.”

It must be how close they are, because he swears the vibrations along his wings almost make it feel like a purr.

“O-okay, I’ve held it. Get it off me.” He almost pleads.

“First, look.”

Hopeless to do anything but obey, he takes a moment to steel himself, buffering against the fear and anxiety and the almost unbearable urge to deploy his null rays and shoot, before he cautiously onlines his vision and chances a look at his hand; at his extended arm, at the dark digits held steadily around it, and the occupant inside it.

The driller almost seems to perk up at him, seeing his optics once more looking upon it. Inside his hand. _Touching him_.

He feels light-headed.

“Primus…”

He feels as Shockwave’s loose grip loosens even more before slowly slipping away, and it’s suddenly only through his own will that he keeps his hand aloft, but even though he is perfectly able now, he can’t bring himself to move or take his sights off the creature still laying over his palm. Either from fear of making any sudden movements, or just a morbid fascination with his own worst fear, he isn’t sure which, but either way the Seeker simply can’t find it in him.

Shockwave seems to be of similar state. He has yet to move himself, instead remaining behind him with all the quiet stillness of an overseeing statue, watching him watching it as it slowly turns over and curls at his digits.

Eventually though, he does speak.

“It appears to be fond of you.”

Starscream shivers. “I’d rather it not have any opinion on me.”

“Regardless.” Shockwave steps away, and whatever… _thing_ had come about them is just as quickly gone. Starscream drops his arm and moves back with as much haste as he dares, and leaves the lone tendril to sway and rejoin the other two. But only briefly though, before Shockwave is motioning them away and they lower back into the ground. Starscream can feel the vibrations under his pedes as the driller burrows away from them, deeper into the planet to await its next call to the surface, and the tension that had remained in his frame throughout the entire ordeal slowly melts away. His vents heave a sigh, and his spark slowly starts to settle.

“You did very well, Commander,” Shockwave commends him with a slight flicker of his mandibles, “if you continue at this rate, you will be able to face the driller and it’s entirety in a matter of cycles.”

The tension quickly returns, and Starscream bristles at the thought of a repeat of this cycles events, taking what had already been a trying task for him another step further; having to acknowledge his fear, the driller, with _Shockwave_ and his…

He shivers.

“Don’t count on it.”


End file.
